American manager enjoys constructive confrontation and Sunday’s trip to Arsenal begins a critical test of his mettle
The mood in the room was heated, bordering on mutinous. It was January 2015 and the New York Red Bulls had decided to organise a town-hall meeting with season-ticket holders, a decision they were quickly beginning to regret. Ten days earlier the club had sacked their wildly popular coach Mike Petke. Now, on a freezing Friday night in Harrison, New Jersey, about 300 furious Red Bulls fans wanted to know why.
Even though the meeting was supposed to be off the record and no media were invited, footage of the chaotic evening quickly found its way online. The general manager, Marc de Grandpre, and sporting director, Ali Curtis, were mercilessly heckled and interrupted at every turn. “You guys don’t know shit!” one fan shouted at them. Some supporters demanded a refund of their season tickets. Others simply wanted to express their disdain for the decision to sack Petke, a man who had led the Red Bulls to some of the greatest successes in their history, and replace him with an unfancied young coach called Jesse Marsch.
